As election 2016 outcomes become clearer and vote totals finalize, we can begin to assess the impact that vote-splitting had on various U.S. Senate races and the presidential contest in states. As the fight for control of the Senate played out, it looks as though six Senate races will be won without a majority of the vote.

As the race for control of the U.S. Senate unfolds on election night, most eyes will be trained on the handful of particularly competitive Senate races. However the dynamics that are likely to unfold in Louisiana are promising to be particularly intriguing. With so many competitive candidates running for Senate, we’re almost certain to see severe vote-splitting, with no candidate winning even close to a majority of the votes, requiring a runoff election.

This year, overseas and military voters cast ranked choice voting ballots in five states. In fact, in advance of Louisiana’s 8:00 pm poll closing deadline this evening, thousands of ranked ballots will have been returned to the state’s election officials by military and overseas voters.

Recently, FairVote has had the opportunity to make such presentations to two international groups: The Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth & Advancement (YIAGA), and representatives from the United States electoral observation mission of the Organization of American States (OAS).

OpaVote is a website for running elections online, and in this blog post we interview, Jeff O'Neill, the founder of OpaVote and a former FairVote legal intern in 2003. If you are part of an organization that holds elections using ranked choice voting, then you may find OpaVote a useful service for running your election.

Canada's Prince Edward Island has announced it will hold a non-binding referendum on five different electoral reforms in fall. The vote will be held online over the course of 10 days, and voters will use ranked choice voting to weigh in on five options (one of which is ranked choice voting).

On July 14th, Congressional lawmakers introduced the Automatic Voter Registration Act of 2016, which would ensure that whenever a citizen interacts with the government, they are automatically registered to vote unless they choose to decline. FairVote is proud to be a long-time supporter automatic voter registration, and was the first national voting organization to originally support the reform.